Sunday 10th (a late write up) was the Annual Bar-B-Que of the Surrey Fly Dressers Guild held at Frensham Trout Fishery. People started to arrive at about 8:30am and I got there at 9:15. We were fishing until about 3:00pm when the food was served. About 19 turned up to fish and a few more for the food in the afternoon.
I fished the day entirely on home made flies. The fish were close to the surface and there were hatches of several types of insects including hawthorn fly and sedge fly, as well as a few mayfly, coming off of the water. Most people tried dry flies and only a few had success. The fish were investigating the flies but that was all, I found. Although a couple of times I did get a break on the surface but none of them took the flies.
Starting on the big lake, I tried several flies and moved position a couple of times, did I get any response It was not until I put on a copper wire sunk spinner, did I get a single tug and that was it. I then changed to the small lake next to the Lodge. Again using the sunk spinner, I tried, but nothing. Then I swapped to a dry fly, again nothing. I finally went to a tatty blue flash damsel (I think this was one of my early attempts at fly tying). None of the colours were quite correct, instead of a flowing tails of marabou feature it had fibres from a stiff feature, it had a hackle of the wrong size, it had blue flash as a rib and to top it all the gold head was on the wrong way round.
As I drew the line, I was coming up to the leader a fish was following the fly. I could not draw more line in because I would have the leader through the rod rings and so I started to move the rod to my left. Jerking the rod a little to give the fly a twitching movement, as I watched the fish followed the change of direction. Suddenly it darted forward, the last few inches and grabbed the fly. It gave a good fight and then I realised that my net was not to hand. I called for one of the others to fetch it for me and Franco kindly responded. He landed a 3Lb rainbow for me.
I then decided to fish the top lake, here I tried my Hairy Mary, but no luck. I have to say though I have caught fish before in this lake but I think mainly I have used white flies here. I tried the cloudy lake next to it but managed to hook the trees twice so I moved on. I moved to the smallest of all the lakes which is just to the left of the top end of the large lake. After a few casts, still using the Hairy Mary I got a tug, I cast again and got a take which snapped the leader a few inches from the braided loop. I fitted a new leader and another Hairy Mary but nothing else.
I moved on to the top of the large lake and started using the same fly. Casting slowly, moving in an arc, back and forth, from my stand, after a while I noticed a fish following. This again was close in and the fish was zig zagging around the fly as it was twitched in. I thought that it had taken and struck but it hadn't. But I managed to cast (just about a leader length) to it's right, about 6" to12", as it swum away and it saw it and again followed and as before it started zig zagging around it again, but this time it did take the fly. This one was quite a strong fish and it took me a little while to get it close to my net, but as it saw it off it went again. Eventually I landed a rainbow of about 5Lbs.
It was then about 3:00pm, time for the Bar-B-Que. What a fabulous spread the club put on, burgers, sausages, chicken, a big array of potatoes and salads. Afterwards puddings of fruit salad, trifles and cheesecake. As well as wines, beers and a variety of soft drinks.
Several of us continued fishing after the Bar-B-Que. I eventually gave up when I had just put on a new leader, hooked into a fish and lost fish, fly and complete leader. I obviously, being a bit tired, had not tied the leader on properly.
